Dead Beautiful (3 page)

When Annie and I got to the marina, we took off our shoes and walked down to the rocky beach, beside the dock on the far side of the bay. The pier and the boats, which were so colorful by day, were now shadowed in shades of blue.

“Thanks for picking me up,” I said, dipping my toes in the water.

“Any time.” She sat down on the rocks. “So I ran into Wes the other day.”

I looked up at her expectantly.

“He asked about you. He wanted to know how you were doing...with everything, you know. He said he’s been calling but you haven’t called him back.”

“He called me?” I was surprised. I hadn’t thought about him at all in the past week, and it never crossed my mind that he could have been thinking about me. Since the night in the woods, it seemed like the phone had been constantly ringing—friends, neighbors, the police, insurance companies. Eventually I just stopped answering, letting my grandfather deal with it.

“He said he left messages on your answering machine. He was worried. He just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“It feels like years since I saw him,” I said almost to myself, and smiled. For the first time since my parents died, I felt the inkling of something other than numbness. Thinking about Wes—about the stubble on his chin, his smooth, muscular arms, his curly brown hair, and the way he had run his hand down the back of my neck when he kissed me—it was almost as if nothing had happened and I could return to the life I’d had before. I hadn’t felt anything since that night in the woods; I hadn’t allowed myself to. Instead I’d spent the last week in a trance—my body wandering around the house as if it were alive, when inside my mind was with the dead.

All of a sudden I felt an incredible urge to feel something more: pain, happiness, it didn’t matter. In front of me the water was tenuously still, as if the night air were weighing down on it with immense pressure.

I didn’t have a bathing suit on, but it didn’t matter. The far side of the marina was always deserted at night. I tore off my clothes and jumped into the bay. My lungs constricted at the shock of the sudden cold, and the salt water stung my eyes.

When I surfaced, Annie was wading in, holding her hair above her head with one hand. I splashed her, and she let out a shriek. Diving underwater, I swam deeper. The boats around me bobbed idly in the water, their reflections stretching into the horizon. I looked to the shore. Annie was near the rocks, floating on her back and staring at the sky.

And then I saw something rise to the surface.

It was round and long, and had what looked like a train of tattered clothes hanging off of it, lolling in the ripples of the water. Its surface was a sickly white.

I screamed and swam back to shore, my arms thrashing wildly in the water.

“What happened?” Annie said frantically.

I pointed to the bay. “There’s someone floating out there.”

Annie stood up and looked. “The buoy?” she said finally.

“I thought”—I said between breaths—“I thought it was a person.”

Annie looked at me, worried. “It’s just a buoy covered in seaweed.”

Embarrassed, I blinked and forced myself to look at it. Leaning over, I let out a sigh of relief. She was right. “I’m sorry. I must be losing my mind.”

As if on cue, a light turned on and flashed into the water. “Who’s there?” someone called from a boat harbored in the bay.

“Oh my God,” I said, not wanting to be seen in my underwear. “Let’s get out of here.” And in the light of the moon we ran back to shore.

After Annie dropped me off, I snuck through the back door, hoping that my grandfather had gone to bed. I’d just barely made it through the kitchen when a figure loomed in the doorway.

I froze. “Crap,” I muttered.

“I see you’ve gone swimming,” my grandfather said sternly. Even at this hour he was still wearing an expensive tweed suit and dinner jacket.

“I was feeling a little stuffy.”

My sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. “Do you think this is funny?” he said loudly.

I jumped at the sudden sharpness in his voice.

“You could have gotten killed. Do you think my rules are arbitrary? That I enforce them just to punish you?”

“Killed. Like my parents? Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad if it meant I didn’t have to live like this anymore.”

He studied me. I clutched my sweatshirt against my chest and waited for him to say something. It was so quiet I could hear the water dripping from my hair onto the linoleum floor.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said. “It wasn’t my intention. Go dry off and get some sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

The next morning I woke up late and tiptoed downstairs. For the first time since he’d moved in, my grandfather had let me sleep through breakfast. It should have felt like a victory, but was so out of character that it made me suspicious. My grandfather was in the living room, sitting in my father’s reading chair, a newspaper resting in his lap. Dustin was clearing a cup and saucer from the side table. I entered the room cautiously, trying not to draw too much attention to myself.

“Renée,” he said, almost warmly, “come in.” He motioned to the sofa across from him.

He was outfitted in trousers and a dinner jacket, with one of the French-cuffed shirts that Dustin starched and ironed every night. His thinning white hair, which was normally impeccably groomed, was tousled on the side, from leaning his head on his hand, I guessed. He took a sip of water, and I braced myself for punishment.

“Please sit,” he said.

Dustin pulled out a chair for me and produced a napkin and place setting.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about your situation,” my grandfather continued.

I fidgeted with my shorts while he spoke, and studied his large, ruddy nose—a nose so massive that it seemed impossible for it to have ever existed on a younger person’s face.

“And I have decided to send you to school.”

I shook my head. “What? But I’m already in school.”

“This is a boarding school. And an elite one at that.”

I stood up in shock. My entire life was here: Annie, my friends, my teachers, the people I grew up with. They were all I had left. I was about to begin my sophomore year, and I had just made the varsity lacrosse team and gotten into AP History, which was normally closed off to sophomores. And of course there was Wes....

“But you can’t!” I cried, though I wasn’t so sure. How could he make me leave when my life was just beginning?

He clasped his hands over one knee. “It’s high time you got an actual education. A classical education. I’ve seen how schools these days operate, letting young people choose what they want and don’t want to study. It’s an ineffective method that has been disproven over and over again. Gottfried Academy has been around for centuries. I’m sure it will provide you with the same strong foundation that your mother had.”

I meant to interrupt him, but when he mentioned my mother, I went quiet. I didn’t know that she had gone to boarding school. She had told me stories about her childhood, about high school, and about how she met my dad, but she’d never told me that she went to boarding school, or that it was prestigious. My dad had to have gone there too, since they’d met in English class. Why would she omit those details?

“I’m not going,” I said defiantly. “You can’t make me.”

He sighed and shook his head. “On the contrary, I can. Your parents entrusted me with your safety, as stipulated in their wills. As your primary guardian, it’s my responsibility to do what I think is best for your future.”

“But they hated you. Even when they were alive they wouldn’t let you see me. So how can you possibly think you know what’s best for me? You don’t know
anything
about me.”

“That may be the case,” he said quietly, “yet the fact still remains that I am your grandfather, and you are a minor. I know more about you than you know about yourself. Now, sit down. Please.”

I cringed and sank into my seat.

“Whether you like it or not, I am your legal guardian, and you’re going to Gottfried. Now, I’m going to speak plainly and clearly. You are not safe here, Renée.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your parents died. I don’t know why or how or by whom, but it certainly was not by natural causes.”

“But the police said—”

“The police believe that they both had some sort of heart attack. Do you think that’s true?”

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

“So … so what, then. You think someone murdered them? That someone chased them into the woods and killed them?”

My grandfather shook his head, his jowls quivering. “I don’t know, Renée. I only know that it wasn’t an accident. Which is why we have to leave.”

My mind raced through all of my options. I could run away, stay with Annie and her parents. Or I could just leave and never come back, live in a train like the boxcar children so my grandfather couldn’t find me. I had to talk to Annie. Maybe she could help me convince her mom to adopt me.

My grandfather must have sensed my dissent. “We depart tomorrow morning. I will physically place you in the car if necessary.”

“Tomorrow? I can’t leave tomorrow. What about my friends?”

Suddenly I didn’t care if there was some killer out there who wanted to chop me to pieces. I was staying, and I was going to find out what happened to my parents. “I’ll never go,” I said defiantly. “Not with you or your stupid butler.”

Dustin coughed in the corner of the room, but I didn’t care.

“We don’t have time for this,” my grandfather said. “The semester begins in a week. You should be grateful that Gottfried is letting you enroll this late. If it weren’t for my outstanding ties with the school, they probably wouldn’t have even considered you.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, angry tears stinging my eyes. “Why would I be safer in a different school? Why don’t we just go to the police?”

“The police were here; do you remember how helpful they were? Gottfried Academy is the safest place you could be right now. I’ve left a suitcase in the hallway outside your bedroom. Pack lightly. You won’t need much. The weather is different on the East Coast, and Gottfried enforces a strict dress code.” He eyed my shorts and tank top. “I daresay your current wardrobe will not do. We’ll find more appropriate attire when we land.”

I thought I had misheard him. “The East Coast?”

“Gottfried is on the western edge of Maine.”

I almost fell out of my chair. I expected Gottfried to be an hour, maybe two, away from Costa Rosa, but moving to Maine was different. I had never been to the East Coast before. The phrase alone conjured up images of stern, expressionless people dressed completely in black; of dark and unfathomably long winters. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the degrees of unhappiness I would experience if I had to move there.

“I can’t go!” I screamed. “I won’t—”

But my grandfather cut me off. “Do you think your parents would want you to stay here, wallowing in self-pity as you’ve been doing for the past week?” He gave me a cold look and shook his head. “No, they would want you to move on with your life. Which is exactly what you’re going to do.”

The conversation was over, and I stormed out of the room. I went upstairs and sat by the window, tears blurring my vision as I watched the heat rise off the pavement in the morning sun. It was unreal how much my life had changed in just one week. Both of my parents were dead, and I had no idea what was going to happen next. But I wasn’t scared. I was alive, and as I picked up the phone to dial Annie’s number, I closed my eyes and made a promise to my parents that I would never take that for granted again.

CHAPTER 2
Gottfried Academy

W
HEN I TOLD ANNIE ABOUT GOTTFRIED
Academy, she sounded more hysterical than I did. “But you can’t move! Who will be my best friend? Who will be
your
best friend? You can move in with me; we’ll be real sisters then, like we always wanted when we were little. You can move into the office.” It was exactly what I wanted her to say, but hearing it from her made me realize how unrealistic it was. Annie already had two younger brothers and a sister that her parents had to worry about, which was why they didn’t have any extra bedrooms or time. If my parents were alive, they would want me to be brave and independent. Running away or going to Annie’s house wouldn’t solve my problems. Where would I go when the only place I wanted to be was back in time? So after Annie’s monologue, I found myself in the unexpected position of reasoning with her.

“But where will your dad work?”

“In the kitchen. Or the living room. We’ll find space.”

I sighed. “I couldn’t do that,” I said. “And your mom is already so busy....”

“But what about school? And all of your friends? And Wes?”

I winced at the thought of leaving them all behind, but tried to convince myself that there was a reason why my parents had made my grandfather, instead of Annie’s mother, my legal guardian. “Maybe Maine won’t be that bad. If my parents went there it couldn’t be too horrible. Besides, we’ll talk every day, and I’ll come back on holidays and in the summer.” After a teary conversation, Annie and I made plans to meet one last time, that night at Baker’s Field.

I spent my last day in California packing and wandering around the house trying to remember its every detail—the way it always smelled faintly of bread, the plush feeling of the carpet beneath my toes, the creaky fifth stair. Eventually I found my way to the office, where my father’s papers were still scattered across his desk. Not ready to look at them, I pushed the documents aside and turned on the computer. First, I searched “heart attack,” trying to figure out what could have possibly been the cause of my parents’ deaths. When more than a million results popped up, I refined my search to “heart attack” and “gauze in mouth.” That was more reasonable, but the results were all about wisdom teeth or complications with dental procedures. And after trying “heart attack, gauze,” and “coins, double heart attack, gauze in mouth,” which yielded nothing except the suggestion, “Did you mean
cost of double heath bar, gooey in mouth?
” I gave up. Frustrated, I typed in “Gottfried Academy.”